The two-hour telecast was broken up into two programs - a
90-minute episode, which was watched by 3.3 million viewers, and
the 30- minute announcement, which had 3.7 million tuned in.

The windfall for Ten pushed its rivals down significantly -
Nine's 60 Minutes and Seven's Castle and Bones
all dropped below the one-million viewer mark.

Only Nine's Random Acts of Kindness (1.2 million) and
Seven's Dancing With The Stars (1.1 million) managed to put
their heads above the waterline, and even then only by a slim
margin.

The win makes the MasterChef finale the highest rating
non-sport program since 2001. Including sports telecasts, it still
comes in third place, beaten only by the Hewitt v Safin Australian
Open match in 2005 (4.04 million) and the 2003 Rugby World Cup
final (4.01 million).

Ten's head of programming, David Mott, said the success of the
show "proves there really is nothing quite like good food to bring
people together".

Mott praised the producers, FremantleMedia Australia, the host,
judges, contestants and his own staff at Ten for "injecting such
high quality production values and energy" into the program.

The two-hour MasterChef telecast peaked at 4.11 million
viewers.

It also drew an enormous share of the total TV audience, with
74.4 per cent of the approximately five million people
watching commercial TV on Sunday night tuned into Ten.

It also won every demographic, including people aged 25-54 (76.3
per cent commercial share), people aged 18-49 (77.7 per cent) and
Ten's declared "target" audience of people aged 16-39 (80.1 per
cent).

It will be followed by Celebrity MasterChef later this
year and a second season of MasterChef in 2010.

6040http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainment/tv--radio/julies-tears-flow-and-it-wasnt-the-onions/2009/07/19/1247941831357.htmlJulie's tears flow and it wasn't the onionstext/html-documenthttp://www.theage.com.au/photogallery/entertainment/master-chef-australia/20090717-dnyb.htmlMaster Chef Australiatext/html-documenthttp://blogs.theage.com.au/yoursay/MasterChef finaltext/html-documenthttp://blogs.theage.com.au/yoursay/MasterChef finaltext/html-documenthttp://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainment/tv--radio/ten-cooks-up-a-storm-in-the-ratings/2009/07/20/1247941872254.htmlTen cooks up a storm in the ratingstext/html-documenthttp://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainment/tv--radio/julie-goodwin-australias-first-masterchef/2009/07/19/1247941827525.htmlJulie Goodwin Australia's first mastercheftext/html-documenthttp://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainment/tv--radio/master-eliminator-cooks-up-storm/2009/07/15/1247337167414.htmlMaster eliminator cooks up stormtext/html-document